Pereyaslav Khmelnytsky

Pereyaslav Khmelnytsky is the oldest regional city (29,400 residents) of Kyiv Oblast, regional center, situated on the banks of Trubizh River not far away from its inflow into the Kaniv Reservoir on Dnipro. Pereyaslav (so it was called until 1943) was mentioned for the first time in 907 as one of three biggest cities of Kyivan Rus. It was a southern border fortress and important handicraft and trade center of Middle Prydniprovya. In the second half of the 12thc. the city becomes the center of a grand principality, which in different times was owned by princes Volodymyr Monomakh, Yuri Dolgorukiy, Volodymyr Hlibovych. The last one participated in the unsuccessful campaign of Novhorod-Siversk prince Igor against Polovtzy, after which Khan Konchak sieged Pereyaslav. Volodymyr Hlibovych stubbornly defended the city, but soon he died of wounds. Near the monument to Volodymyr Hlibovych, erected by grateful descendants in the years of independence, there is a memorial plaque with the quotation from chronicles about the death of Pereyaslav Prince, where the word "Ukraine" was mentioned for the first time. After Christianization of Rus it became the center of diocese, and the first stone buildings for public worship started to emerge here. The fragments of their foundations were found in the process of archaeological excavations and became museum exhibits. The great Mongolian horde ruined the town in 1239. It began to gradually revive only in 200 years, but forays of the Crimean Khan Mengli Girei destroyed it once more in 1482. In the first half of the l6thc. the uncontrolled process of forming Ukrainian Kozak organizations in Pereyaslav (as well as in Cherkasy and Island of Khortytsia) .set in. In 1569, according to the Union of Lublin, the town was ceded to the Rzeczpospolita. In 15 years, it obtains the Magdeburg Right, and Kyiv voivode Duke K. Ostrozky erects a new fortress on the former castle site. The next fifty years were marked by Ukrainian-Polish hostilities, especially bloody during Kozak revolts under K. Kosynsky, S. Nalyvaiko, T. Fedorovych, and P. But. The accumulated Kozak and peasant dissatisfaction developed into the Liberation war of Ukrainian people against the Rzeczpospolita (1648-1654), in which Pereyaslav, as a regimental city, played a significant role. The war was ended by the famous Pereyaslav Rada and Pereyaslav-Moscow Treaty. Until 1781 it remained a regimental city and was developing rapidly. At the time main architectural memorials were built, including the marvelous ensemble of the monastery of the Ascension: Cathedral of the Ascension (1695-1700), collegium (1753-1757), and bell tower (1770-1776). In 1753 H. Skovoroda taught poetics in this collegium. Besides, there are St. Michael Church (1646-1666) built by Colonel F. Loboda on the ruins of St. Michael Cathedral (1090), and bell tower (1745), and late classical Sts. Boris and Glib Church (1839). During the Soviet period the Monument to the 300th Anniversary of Reunification of Ukraine with Russia was erected (1961). The museum of folk architecture and way of life (now-the National preserve of history and ethnography "Pereyaslav" (1964) is the real pearl of the city. Altogether there are 20 and more museums in the city; that is why Pereyaslav Khmelnytsky is a provincial leader in this domain in the country.